


All That We See Or Seem

by eternaleponine



Category: Motherland: Fort Salem (TV)
Genre: (and parts of 110), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant through 109, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, POV Multiple, Past Tense, Present Tense, mentions of suicide/suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:53:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24591109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: Anacostia sets Scylla free and she returns to the Spree, where she meets Raelle's mother.  Disappointed in Scylla's failure, Willa traps Scylla in sleep.  Anacostia rescues her and brings her to a fixer friend, but despite her best efforts, Scylla can't be woken.  Can Raelle succeed where others have failed, or will she be forced to give up on the girl she loves?
Relationships: Raelle Collar/Scylla Ramshorn
Comments: 30
Kudos: 245





	All That We See Or Seem

**Author's Note:**

> The change in verb tense at a certain point in the story is intentional, although it actually did start out as an accident. Apologies to anyone who finds it confusing/jarring.
> 
> Also, please [check out the beautiful art](https://ironicsnowflake.tumblr.com/post/620285010619072513/all-that-we-see-or-seem-by-eternaleponine-fandom) created by [cs_teinfield](https://www.instagram.com/cs_teinfield/) to go with the story.

Against her better judgement, and everything she'd ever believed and held dear, Anacostia let Scylla go. 

Maybe Scylla had been right when she said Anacostia had been forced to question the version of good and evil she'd been taught all her life. Maybe it was that, had things gone a different way, she might have become like Scylla herself. 

Maybe it was watching Alder – who she loved like a mother and believed in like a goddess – break one of their most sacred rules for reasons she didn't understand and couldn't question, or maybe it was knowing it had to have been Alder who decided to send the Bellweather unit to the front lines – now, today – rather than on to War College where they might learn enough to give them a chance to live long enough to _live_.

Maybe it was Raelle's final plea for Anacostia to do what she could to protect Scylla, to keep her safe, because in spite of everything Raelle still loved her, and that had to mean something.

Maybe she saved Scylla because she couldn't save Raelle, or Tally, or any of the girls who had come before them or any of the girls who would come after. 

Maybe it was all of the above. 

So Anacostia unlocked the girl's chains and handed her a lighter and let Scylla take her face and escape with it, and hoped that she wouldn't live to regret it.

* * *

Penelope Road. 

It was the only lead Scylla had, but it was enough. It had to be. 

She hesitated at the little garden gate, open and welcoming, and let herself hope, just a little.

"The way over is under," Scylla said to the woman sitting on the front steps.

"The way out is in," she replied, and let Scylla pass.

Scylla moved through the space slowly, and it had been so long – too long – since she'd been anywhere that felt like a home...

... but that wasn't precisely true, was it? Because home had never really been a place for her. It couldn't be, when her family had been forced to move from place to place, town to town, never staying anywhere longer than a few weeks or months because if they did the military would catch up to them, and—

Home hadn't been a place. Home had been people... until it wasn't. And then it had become people – one person, _the_ person – again. 

Until it wasn't. 

Again. 

Scylla pushed the thought down, locked it up tight because if she didn't it might break her – again – and she couldn't afford that right now. She had a second chance and she had to get it right. 

She made her way to the back of the house, where she could smell something cooking in the kitchen, making her stomach growl loud enough she feared others might hear even over the music that blared through the place. 

"How'd you get out?" the woman at the stove asked.

"Anacostia helped me," Scylla said. 

"Good work. I'm guessing you're hungry."

"Very."

The woman turned, an expression that was not quite a smile curving her lips. "You were supposed to bring me my daughter."

Scylla's own smile faded, and for a second she thought the woman – Raelle's mother?! – was doing some sort of work on her because she couldn't draw air into her lungs, or push it out either, but no, that wasn't magic, it was just shock, and terror, and—

"Sit," Willa Collar said. "I'll make you a plate."

* * *

Days passed, and there were questions, dozens, hundreds of questions, and Scylla answered them as honestly as she could because this was her family now, these were her people, and she had to... She had to. 

But at night, when she was alone in the tiny room she'd been given, it was hard not to think about the woman who had come to her wearing Raelle's face, who'd closed her hands around Scylla's throat and told her she was supposed to get Raelle for the Spree, not for herself. It hadn't been Willa's face when she dropped the mask, but Scylla had no doubt they were her words. And the threats, telling her if she didn't deliver Raelle her future was bleak...

And she hadn't delivered Raelle, and she felt it every time Willa's eyes landed on her. Although she made a show of forgiving, Scylla's failure had not been – would never be – forgotten. 

Just like Willa wasn't going to just give up on getting her daughter back. 

_Hold on to the part of you that's good,_ Anacostia had told her. 

She'd been kinder to Scylla than she needed to be. Maybe kinder than Scylla deserved, although that was an entirely different rabbit hole Scylla couldn't allow herself to go down. 

The trouble was that the part of Scylla that was good wanted not part of her anymore, because the part of her that was good was Raelle. Raelle, who had been willing to let Scylla go, to let her die. ( _We all go sometime._ Raelle, who wished they'd never met. Raelle, who Scylla had chosen, who Scylla had loved – still loved. 

Raelle, who she would protect, whatever the cost. Even if she never got her back. Even if Raelle never forgave her the lies and deception that had become an increasingly heavy burden to carry with every day, every moment that passed that showed Scylla there was another way, a better way, than anything she'd ever known before. 

The trouble was, she didn't know anymore what she was protecting Raelle from.

* * *

Her door creaked open in the middle of the night, and Scylla froze like she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't even though she hadn't been doing anything at all. She'd traced the air above her palm a hundred times, a thousand, but she hadn't ever let her fingertip touch her skin. She didn't know what Raelle had been told about her, if she'd been told anything at all, but she was sure a sign that Scylla was still alive, that she was still thinking of Raelle, wouldn't be welcome. 

"It's all right," Willa said. "I just wanted to check there was nothing you need."

"I'm fine," Scylla said. "Thank you." 

She waited for Willa to leave, but she stayed where she was, standing in the doorway, watching Scylla with eyes that burned bright even in the darkness. 

"Get some sleep," Willa said. "' _All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream._ '"

Scylla felt sleep drag her down too quickly to fight.

In the morning, she didn't wake.

* * *

Every morning, Anacostia jogged past the house on Penelope Road, and every morning she saw Scylla there, raking leaves or tending plants or otherwise puttering around the garden. She wondered if Scylla had caught on that Anacostia had followed her here when she came, and that she kept coming by to check up on her, and had decided to make it easy on her by putting herself more or less in plain sight. Maybe – probably – Anacostia was giving them both a little too much credit. 

Then one morning Scylla wasn't there. All day Anacostia braced herself for news of a Spree attack, but it never came, and she told herself it had just been a fluke. Maybe Scylla had had a non-terrorist errand to run. Maybe she'd decided to go out for coffee. But when she wasn't there the next morning, or the one after, Anacostia couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Very wrong. And she was responsible.

She watched, and waited, and late that night she saw a man carrying a rather human-shaped bundle of blankets to a car. He tucked it into the back seat and drove away, and she quickly followed, keeping her distance so he wouldn't catch on. He finally pulled into the parking lot of an abandoned movie theater and got out, moving quickly to another car which he got into and drove away. 

Knowing she likely didn't have long, Anacostia ran for the car, climbing into the driver's seat and peeling away before whoever was waiting to take Scylla – it had to be Scylla, _shit_ what if it wasn't Scylla? – could arrive. 

She stopped at a stop light, not wanting to draw unwanted attention by speeding through it even though there was no one else around, and not wanting to raise questions by whispering work to change its color. She reached back and flipped aside the blankets, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw a familiar pale face and dark hair. 

"All right," she said. "All right. Let's get you—" 

She'd been about to say home, but she couldn't take her back to base. Even with Alder gone – maybe especially with Alder gone – she couldn't bring Scylla back to where she would be seen as an escaped prisoner. There was no way she would avoid being transported a second time, because there was no way they would let Anacostia be the one to guard her again. 

Which meant she needed a plan B.

* * *

"What in the name of the Goddess—" 

"I can explain," Anacostia said. "Just please, let me in."

Rowan hesitated, but after a second stepped aside, letting her slip past with Scylla, still bundled in blankets and heavy in her arms. "Well?"

"She just... needs somewhere to recover for a little while," Anacostia said, not daring to look her old friend from way back in basic in the eye, lest she see the lies there. "She got taken prisoner, and—"

Rowan shouldered her aside. "Let me see," she said. "Put her there." She motioned to a couch, arranging pillows while Anacostia lowered Scylla gently to its surface. The girl hadn't stirred the entire time, hadn't done so much as sigh, and Anacostia was starting to get more than a little worried. Whatever they'd used to keep her quiet was no ordinary sleep spell. 

Rowan busied herself looking her over, light fingers brushing over the bruises that still encircled Scylla's wrists and ankles (did no one in her so-called family of Spree care enough to heal them?) before she began to hum, her hands hovering just above Scylla's body, moving down her limbs and up again, finally stopping at her head. She frowned. 

"Who had her?" Rowan asked. 

"The Spree," Anacostia said, because it wasn't a lie. 

"The Spree...? They don't—" Rowan shook her head. "It doesn't matter. How long as she been asleep?"

"I don't know," Anacostia said. "I just found her. She's been... missing for a few days." 

Rowan frowned. "Someone's put her under. Deep. I don't think she could wake if she wanted to."

Anacostia sucked in a breath. "But you can, right? You can wake her."

"I can try," Rowan said. "This isn't my area of expertise."

"You're the best fixer I know," Anacostia said. 

Rowan snorted. "You work at Fort Salem. There are plenty of better fixers there than me. I'm just a combat medic with a lucky streak." She looked at Scylla again, tucking back a stray strand of hair that had plastered itself to her face. "Why bring her here instead of there?"

Anacostia swallowed. "It's a long story."

Rowan raised an eyebrow, then shook her head. "You know what? I don't want to know. Come on. I'll get you some tea, and then I'll get to work."

"I can't stay," Anacostia said. "I've already been—"

Rowan held up a hand. "Don't," she said. "What I don't know, they can't court martial me for. But you're carrying her to a bed before you go. I'm not exactly up for much heavy lifting these days." She gestured to her swollen belly – the only reason she was here and not out in the field – and motioned for Anacostia to follow her. 

Anacostia lifted Scylla again, and she had to be imagining it, but the girl felt somehow lighter, like she'd lost substance just in the last few minutes. She carried Scylla into a small room in the back of the modest house where Rowan lived, alone now because her husband had been killed in the line of duty a few months ago. Anacostia knew she should feel guilty for being relieved that he wasn't around to ask questions, but she only had so much room for emotions, and right now it was all being used up on concern for the girl she'd thought she could save, and who she still held out hope for now.

"I'll let you know," Rowan said, taking her hand and squeezing, sending a quick pulse of energy through her before turning to fuss with Scylla's covers.

"Thank you," Anacostia said, and let herself out.

* * *

It felt like their return to Fort Salem should have been a cause for... something, but Raelle was honestly grateful for the lack of ceremony, of pomp and circumstance. She was exhausted and sore and all she wanted was to collapse into her bunk and sleep for a week. 

Then Anacostia caught her eye, and her heart tripped over itself and it was all she could do to hold her position until General Alder had dismissed them. 

"Where are you—" Abigail started when she made a beeline for their Sergeant, then let out a curse that probably wasn't as quiet as she meant for it to be. Or maybe it was exactly as quiet – or not – as she meant for it to be. It didn't matter. Raelle needed to know.

"Let's walk," Anacostia said, turning on her heel with her hands behind her back like they were just on a casual stroll. "How was the mission?"

"We survived it," Raelle said, which was about all she could say. She was sure Anacostia would get the full report soon enough. "How—" She swallowed. "Where—" But she couldn't force the words past the lump in her throat, and she knew she should let it go, that she shouldn't care, but she did. They could have died out there, and the last words she'd ever said to the girl she loved would have been that she wished they'd never met, and—

"She's safe," Anacostia said quietly. Raelle looked up sharply, but Anacostia shook her head, and there was something in her eyes and the set of her jaw that said there was more to the story. 

"Please..."

"Not here, not now," Anacostia said. "Go shower, change, get some rest. I'll find you later."

Raelle nodded and fell back to join her unit as they made their way back to Circe. 

Tally looked at her expectantly, but Raelle just shook her head. Abigail scowled. "Are we really doing this again?" she asked. "She's _Spree_ , Raelle! She killed my—"

"She didn't," Raelle snapped. "She didn't kill Charvel or anyone else at that party. They don't attack other witches. We _know_ who did it now, and—"

"So you're some kind of expert on—"

"Guys, please," Tally said. "Can we just—"

"They tried to warn us!" Raelle said. "Even Alder admits that. We have a common enemy now. Maybe—" She sniffed, blinking back tears she didn't want to be shedding. 

"Maybe there's room to find common ground," Tally finished for her, and Raelle was forced to wonder if somehow her ability to know extended to what was in other people's heads, or if she was just that good at guessing what Raelle was thinking. 

Raelle nodded, swiping at her eyes. 

Tally slipped an arm around her and pulled her against her side in a half-hug, and Raelle let her head drop against her sister's shoulder, just for a second, accepting comfort she didn't know if she deserved.

* * *

Anacostia found her after dinner, when Raelle was feeling a little more stable, a little more like herself and less like someone who had narrowly escaped death... even though that's who she was now, and who she would be for the rest of her probably short life. Alder had said they would talk about their future when they got back, but even after everything Raelle wasn't inclined to believe a word that came out of her mouth. Anacostia quickly and quietly filled Raelle in on what had happened, where Scylla was now, the efforts that her friend Rowan had gone to, the other fixers whose discretion Rowan trusted who'd been called in to help. 

"Nothing has worked," Anacostia finished. "Not yet, anyway."

"Let me see her," Raelle said. "Maybe I—"

"Raelle," Anacostia said. "These are some of the best fixers in the world. You don't even have any formal training. I don't think—"

"Let me see her," Raelle repeated. "Please. I need to see her. I need—"

Anacostia sighed. "I'll see what I can do," she said.

* * *

Raelle didn't see Anacostia again until late the next afternoon. "Follow me," she said, taking off at a clip that forced Raelle and her shorter legs into a half-jog to keep up. Anacostia motioned to a car and Raelle slipped inside, and nearly jumped out of her skin when both back doors opened a few seconds later.

"You're not going without us," Abigail said. 

Raelle didn't argue. It would just be a waste of breath, for one, and for another, she was honestly glad to not have to face... whatever she was about to face alone. They might not always see eye-to-eye, but Tally and Abigail were her sisters, her unit. They had her back, no matter what. Even when they thought she was being an idiot. 

The drive felt longer than it was. Tally gripped her hand the entire way, and Raelle let her. Finally they pulled up in front of a smallish, nondescript house that could have belonged to anyone and piled out.

"Rowan, this is Raelle Collar, Abigail Bellweather, and Tally Craven," Anacostia said, introducing them to the very pregnant woman who had been watching over Scylla for the past few days. "Raelle is the one I told you about."

"This way," Rowan said. She led them to a small room furnished with little more than the bare essentials, but it managed to look warm and inviting nonetheless. 

Raelle's breath caught when she saw Scylla. She was pale – paler even than before, and her eyes and cheeks were sunken. Her arms were at her sides on top of the quilt, the bones of her wrists prominent. 

"We're getting fluids into her as best we can," Rowan said softly. "But she can't eat, and..." She looked Raelle straight in the eye, and Raelle could see the sorrow there. "If she doesn't wake soon, it's really only a matter of time." 

Raelle swallowed hard, edging closer to the bed. There was a chair beside it, but she perched herself on the edge of the bed instead, reaching out and taking one of Scylla's hands gingerly between her own. "Scylla," she whispered. "Oh Scyl..." 

"Careful," Rowan said. "Everyone who has tried to reach her, tried to heal her... they get caught in their own worst nightmares until they break contact. I learned that the hard way. We have to assume it's the same for her." Rowan reached out and traced the back of her fingers over Scylla's brow like she was checking for fever. "Poor thing. I don't know why anyone would want to do that to another person. Another witch."

But Anacostia had a guess, which she'd shared with Raelle the night before but apparently not with this woman she called a friend: the Spree had decided to punish Scylla for allowing someone to break through her defenses and rip information about them from her head, and now they were making sure it would never happen again. They were destroying one of their own operatives in the process, but maybe they would have reversed it – whatever it was – when they thought she'd learned her lesson.

Maybe Anacostia stealing her from them had inadvertently prolonged her suffering. Maybe, in trying to save her, Anacostia had killed her after all. 

Raelle wasn't going to let that happen.

"I'll try," Raelle said. "Maybe I can reach her." 

"No," Abigail said. "No way. You're not getting trapped—"

"Oh, so it's okay for me to risk myself to save your boyfriend's sister from some unknown disease, or poison, or whatever it is, but when I want to try to save my—"

Raelle stumbled, not knowing what to call Scylla. She wasn't her girlfriend, not anymore. She wasn't even her friend. She was—

 _My heart,_ Raelle thought. _My whole entire goddess-damned heart._

"You can't stop me," she said. "I need to do this."

"She's Sp—" Abigail grunted, cut off by the sharp jab of Tally's elbow into her ribs.

Raelle took advantage of Abigail's momentary distract to press her hand to Scylla's forehead, muttering quickly and opening a link between them.

* * *

"Hey, hey, hey," Tally said, dragging Raelle back, her breath hot against Raelle's ear. "Raelle, shh, shh, it's okay. You're okay. It was just—it wasn't real." 

Raelle's heart pounded in her chest and she looked wildly around. It wasn't real. It wasn't... But it had sure as hell _felt_ real. Every mistake she'd ever made, every failure, every unkind word, every bad memory all at once and amplified, twisted and morphed until it consumed her and there was no light, no hope, nothing but nightmare without end. 

She sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, shivering in Tally's arms. She waited for her pulse to steady a little, then reached for Scylla again, but Abigail and Tally both grabbed her hands, pulling them back and pinning them. 

"Uh-uh," Abigail said. "No way. You tried. It didn't work. You're not trying again."

"I'm not leaving her in there," Raelle said. "I don't care what she's done, no one – _no one_ \- deserves that." 

"Okay," Tally said. "Okay." Raelle couldn't see her glaring at Abigail, but she could feel the tension in both of them. "But take a break. Talk to Rowan. See if you can come up with a plan. Because that..." She shook her head. "That was terrifying." 

Raelle considered trying to break free, to grab Scylla's hand again, but after a few seconds she gave in. "Okay," she said, and told herself she wasn't a coward for taking a break. 

"I'll get you some tea," Rowan said.

* * *

They came back the next day, and the next day, and the next. Every day there was a little less of Scylla, and a little less of Raelle, too. Because every time she tried to heal her, every time she plunged into the maelstrom of her mind, she was gone a little longer, and when they finally dragged her out screaming, she had poured more of herself into Scylla than she could spare. 

"We can't keep doing this," Abigail said. "We can't keep letting her. She's going to kill herself." 

Tally looked at Raelle, draped half on top of Scylla, twitching as she fought against whatever demons were in Scylla's head... or her own. They didn't know, and Raelle didn't talk about it. She just shook her head, wiped the tears from her eyes, and soldiered on. "Maybe—" 

Raelle's scream split the quiet of the room, and they reached for her and yanked her back, breaking her connection to Scylla, and she collapsed back against them, sweaty and trembling, her eyes wild. "I was close," she said. "I was so close." She turned and shoved at them. "I was _so close_! Every time—"

"You were screaming," Tally said. "Screaming like—" She shook her head. _Screaming like the witches we watched burn,_ she thought. 

"So let me scream," Raelle said. "Let me—" She reached for Scylla's hand, but stopped just shy of touching it. "Let me go."

* * *

"I know you love her," Rowan said when Raelle came back the next day. She'd managed to slip Anacostia's lead, slip away from her unit. She was here alone, and this time she wasn't giving up. 

"I don't—" Rowan gave her a look that stopped the lie in its tracks just as surely as her body planted in the doorway stopped her from reaching Scylla.

"I know you love her," Rowan repeated, "but you can't always save the things, the people, you love. No matter how much you want to. No matter how hard you try. I think it's time—"

"No," Raelle said. "No. Not yet. Just..." She looked up, blinking hard to try to keep her tears at bay. "Just once more. Please. Just one more time. I have an idea. If I can't reach her... if it doesn't work... I'll stop. Please." 

Rowan looked at her, then over her shoulder at Scylla, and sighed. "Once more," she said. She stepped aside.

"Hey Scyl," Raelle said. She sat down on the edge of the bed, taking Scylla's hand in hers and turning up her palm. "It's me. Raelle." She traced an R gently on Scylla's skin, half expecting it to inscribe itself into her own palm, but it didn't seem to work that way. "I'm not giving up on you. I know I said a lot of terrible things, but... but the truth is I love you. Still. I don't know how to stop loving you, and I don't want to, and you chose me and now I'm choosing you. Okay? I'm choosing you." 

_Even if it kills me._

She kicked off her boots and crawled onto the bed, wrapping herself around Scylla like she'd wanted to all along but never let herself when there was an audience. She pressed her lips to Scylla's fingers, then to her shoulder and her temple and finally her lips like this was a fairy tale and true love's kiss would wake her when everything else had failed, but Scylla didn't move, didn't blink, didn't kiss her back. It was like kissing—

Raelle shoved the thought away, buried it deep. Six feet—

_Stop. No one is dying today._

Or they both were.

She'd tried all the words she'd ever used in healing before and they hadn't worked. She'd tried every seed sound that might possibly help, and those had failed too. But she'd realized that all this time they'd all been trying to pull Scylla out, and maybe that was wrong way to go about it. Maybe the way out was in. 

Hadn't Scylla said that once? 

"Entreat me not to leave you, or turn back from following you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried..."

Raelle closed her eyes, seeing with her heart now, or her soul, or—she didn't know and it didn't matter. She could feel a shift in the storm that surrounded Scylla, the storm that had engulfed her and torn at her until she couldn't take it any longer. She watched, and waited, and finally she saw an opening. It wasn't much, but it was enough. 

She dove.

* * *

"I'm going to kill her," Abigail snarled. "I'm swear if she survives this, I'm going to kill her." 

But as they stared down at Raelle, pale as Scylla now, pale as death, Tally knew that the chances they would get their sister back were slim. Because this time Raelle wasn't struggling. This time there was no sense of a scream building within her. This time she looked almost peaceful. And maybe...

"Maybe..." She blotted the corner of her eye with the cuff of her sleeve, saying today what she hadn't yesterday. "Maybe we should just..." she swallowed a sob, forcing her voice as steady as she could make it, "let her go. She's never hidden the fact that she doesn't care that much about... living... and maybe... maybe it would be kinder." 

In the past the look Abigail turned on her would have made Tally back up, back down, but not anymore. It had to be said. Better a peaceful death with the girl she loved, even after everything, then a brutal, violent one on the battlefield, right? 

"Who the fuck are you and what did you do with Tally Craven?" Abigail demanded. "Because the Tally Craven _I_ know never gives up." She jabbed a finger in Raelle's direction. "She may be a suicidal shitbird, but she's _our_ suicidal shitbird, and we're going to fucking save her. And Necro too, if we have to."

* * *

Raelle stumbled out of the storm... and onto a beach. 

It's sunrise, the sky painted in pastel hues as the first edge of the sun just peeks over the horizon. Waves crash into the shore and slide away again in soft, lulling rhythm, and two figures stand with their feet in the water, facing each other as they wind a ribbon around their joined hands, speaking words too quiet for Raelle to hear. 

Raelle takes a step closer, and another, her feet crunching sand and shells, but they don't notice. They are each other's entire world as they lean in for a soft, slow kiss. 

A rogue wave comes up and hits the happy couple, drenching them from the knees downward, and they shriek and laugh and one tugs the other by their still joined, still tied hands towards the lighthouse a little ways away and they disappear inside.

She jogs forward a few steps, not wanting to lose them, but stops when she sees what the waves are now slowly but steadily washing away: a spiral carved into the sand, a path like the one at Charvel's wedding. And at its center where they had stood are two military medals, left behind for the tide to take away, symbols of an old life discarded and a new one begun. 

She doesn't need to read the names to know who they belong to, and she knows now where she is.

_Leave our medals hanging on the door..._

But they hadn't. They hadn't, and now maybe it was too late.

Saltwater slides down her cheeks and drips off chin, her tears just one more drop in the ocean.

She blinks.

It's afternoon now, and a little girl comes running down the beach as fast as her chubby legs can carry her. "Mom!" she calls, holding out her arms as she launches herself past Raelle and straight into... her arms? 

But not her arms, because they belong to a version of Raelle that's a little older, and who is apparently a mother, but that doesn't make sense. There's no way she would ever— 

"Mama!" the little girl cries, wriggling free to tackle Scylla at the knees. Scylla scoops her up, laughing, and carries her over to the other Raelle, leaning in for a kiss. And the little girl doesn't look like either of them, but there is no mistaking that they are a family.

"Let's go!" the little girl says. 

Raelle – the other Raelle – picks up a bucket and takes the girls' outstretched hand, and Scylla takes the other, and they head toward the water. "One... two... three!" they count together and lift their arms to let her swing between them, the girl – their daughter – giggling with glee. 

Raelle watches them go and wonders if she was ever that happy...

She blinks.

They watch a storm roll in from the horizon through the great glass windows at the top of the lighthouse, lightning flickering in the distance and the low rumble of thunder. Rain spatters the glass and their hands find each other on the railing, fingers tangling and squeezing, because no matter how furious the storm, they know it will never tear them apart. 

"Do you want to stay up here?" Scylla asks. She's long since accepted Raelle's dueling fear and fascination with storms, and she will sit beside her for hours if that's what she wants. 

"Do you have a better idea?" Raelle asks, looking at her out of the corner of her eye, already fighting back a smile.

Scylla tips up her chin, and there is that cocky little smirk that Raelle is forever trying to kiss away, and this time is no exception, but it only ever makes it worse. (And by worse, Raelle means better. So, so much better.) 

"I can think of a thing or two..." 

Raelle blinks. 

"You didn't have to do this," Scylla says, pushing herself up onto her elbows as Raelle shoulders her way into their room, balancing a tray. "Raelle..."

"I wanted to," Raelle says. She waits for Scylla to sit up and settles the tray in her lap, then curls up beside her, kissing her shoulder and temple. "Happy birthday, love," she whispers. "And many, many more."

Blink. 

She looks in the mirror and sees creases in her skin and gray in her hair she never expected to grow old enough to see, but when she looks in Scylla's eyes she is still and will always be the girl who gave up everything to follow her heart.

Blink. 

They welcome a dodger family into their home. A mother and father and two children, one their daughter's age and the other a teenager, close to having to say the words, but only if the army finds them. It's their responsibility, their duty, to help make sure that doesn't happen. For a few days their house is crowded and chaotic, and they wouldn't have it any other way.

Blink. 

They walk down the beach hand in hand. At sunrise and sunset and every hour in between. They swim in the ocean and have picnics on the beach and joke that the sand is the secret ingredient to all their best recipes. They build bonfires and watch the stars and rename all the constellations. 

Blink.

They grow flowers hardy enough to thrive in the sand and salt air, and gather buckets of pebbles and shells and sea glass and create rock gardens in the places where things cannot grow, creating patterns that are beautiful but also powerful, runes to protect them and the life they've built so no one can ever, ever take it from them.

Blink.

They sit at the tiny table in their cozy kitchen and sip tea. They stand at the stove and rub elbows and bump shoulders and hips, playfully fighting to occupy the same space as they prepare meals together. They wrap a quilt around their shoulders and cradle mugs of cocoa in their palms and watch snow fall. They wrap themselves around each other and see nothing but each other's eyes.

Blink.

Scene after scene flashes in front of Raelle's eyes. Time has no meaning here. They are old and they are young, and they are everything in between. Seasons change summer to winter to fall to spring. But one thing remains constant: they're together. They're together, and happy, and free. No military. No Spree. No being on opposite sides of a war that no one will ever win. Just the two of them – or sometimes three, and Raelle watches a child she will never have live a life she never dreamed of – a life full of love, and laughter, and _living_. 

Scylla isn't trapped in a nightmare at all. Scylla is living her best life... and she has no idea it isn't real. 

No wonder she doesn't want to wake up. 

But now Raelle is here to... what? Drag her back into reality, where there is only war and pain and suffering? Where she is war meat and Scylla is the enemy and their lives will never look anything like this? 

Tears blur her vision. Abigail, Rowan... they've been right all along. She needs to let Scylla go. Let her live out her days in this dream until she passes on to whatever comes after. 

At least one of them ought to have peace...

"Are you lost?"

Raelle whips around, and there is Scylla. _Her_ Scylla, but in civilian clothes, looking at her like—

"Oh! I thought you were— You were just—" Scylla looks toward the lighthouse. "Come on, then." She smiles and reaches for Raelle's hand, and Raelle almost lets her take it, but at the last second she pulls away because she doesn't know what it will do, doesn't know what it might mean, and—

"What's wrong?" Scylla asks. "Raelle, what are you—" She takes a step back. "Why are you wearing that? We—" 

Raelle looks down and sees she is in her uniform, combat-ready with her hood up, and she pushes it back. "Scylla, I—" _What? She what?_ "This isn't real," she blurts. "Scylla, this isn't real. You're dreaming." 

A smile curves Scylla's lips again. "I know it feels that way," she says. "We thought we would never—"

"We didn't," Raelle interrupts. "We—you—" She takes a deep breath, trying to steady the trembling that threatens to shake her apart. "They trapped you here. The Spree. They trapped you and made you think it's real so you don't want to leave, but out there—" Raelle points in the direction from which she'd come, though there is no clear sign that there is anything, anywhere, other than here and now, "you're d—" Another breath, and she drops her hand, clenching and unclenching her fingers at her side. "You're dying, Scyl. I'm watching you die. And—and it's killing me." Literally, but that was Raelle's choice and not Scylla's fault and— 

Scylla's smile slips away. "What..." She shakes her head. "Why would the Spree...?"

"Because they don't want anyone to get into your head," Raelle says. "That's our guess, anyway. They don't want anyone to be able to get at what you know again." 

"I don't—" Scylla's frown deepens, and the sky above them darkens, storm clouds gathering. She glances up, and back toward the lighthouse. "You should go," she says. "Now."

She should. Raelle knows it. She should go, and leave Scylla here, and—

"You chose me," Raelle says. "They wanted me, wanted you to bring me to them, but you chose _me_. You chose _us_. Don't you remember? We danced. You told me you loved me. No matter what happens. Then it all fell apart, and they—I let them—" Raelle shakes her head, fighting back a sob. "I'm sorry, Scylla. I promised you I was with you, and then I wasn't, and I'm so, so sorry."

Silence, except for the pounding of the waves on the shore, and the distant growl of thunder, and Raelle's own rasping breath as she fights for control. She doesn't dare look up, afraid that all she will see is Scylla's retreating footsteps in the sand. 

"I love you, Scyl. And I can't promise we'll have all of this. I can't promise we'll have any of this. But I promise we can try. Things are different now. The Spree and the military have a common enemy and maybe... maybe there's a chance for us. Maybe there's a place. Maybe we can find a way forward together. Not just you and me, but all of us. Witches. Maybe... maybe civilians, too. They're not all bad, Scylla. My dad—" She sucks in a breath. "My dad would love you, Scyl. Because I love you. Because you make me happy. But you have to choose. I can't force you to leave this place. I won't. If you'd rather stay—"

"You could stay too," Scylla says. "You could stay, and it could be the two of us, and—"

It's tempting. It's so tempting to say yes, to follow Scylla back to the lighthouse to weather the storm like they have so many times before, to curl up in their bed under their quilt and its compass pattern that she has told Scylla more than once always points to her, Raelle's own true north, and—

And those moments, those lives, aren't hers. They belong to the other Raelle, the Raelle that Scylla imagines her to be, and the truth is much more complicated and much more human, and as much as she might wish it, she can't be that person. Not even for Scylla.

"I don't think it works that way," Raelle says. "There's already a version of me here. I don't think this place is big enough for two of us." 

Scylla looks down. "And if I choose you?"

"You choose love," Raelle says. "But you also choose pain. You choose to fight and bleed and maybe die. You choose a chance to build a better world... and a chance that we'll fail." Because there is no point in sugarcoating it, and she wants Scylla to make this decision with her eyes wide open. "But whatever happens, we'll be together. Just like we said. Just like we promised."

Her skin prickles and the hair on the back of her neck stands on end, and a split-second later thunder cracks the sky and lightning lances down, electrifying the air and scorching the sand, turning it to glass. 

"You need to go!" Scylla says. "Raelle, you need to run!" Because they can both feel the charge gathering, preparing to strike again, and Raelle doesn't know what will happen if it finds them. If they die here—

Raelle turns, gathering herself to sprint as far and as fast as she can from this place, away from danger and straight back into it, but before she can move Scylla catches her hand, yanking her back. Raelle barely has time to take her in before Scylla's lips meet hers in a kiss damp with tears and rain that pours down in a deluge from the shattered sky. 

"Go!" Scylla says, pushing her away, and Raelle runs. She can see a breach in the distance, a break in the storm like the one she came through to get here, and she aims herself for it, hoping Scylla is right behind her but not daring to look. It isn't until she is stepping through that she looks back, and Scylla is still on the beach, wearing her dress uniform with the skull corsage pinned to her breast, just like the day of the wedding, the day everything had come together and fallen apart all at once...

"Scylla!" she screams, as the storm closes around her, shoving her out.

* * *

She woke up gasping, soaked in sweat and tears, pinned down by... Tally? And Abigail? Scylla was in her arms, as blank and distant as ever, but her sisters were here too, and Raelle could feel them linked to her, feeding her and anchoring her, pouring themselves into the bond to sustain her while she...

Failed. 

She'd failed. She'd given Scylla a choice, and Scylla had chosen... not her. 

And who could blame her, really? No one had ever chosen Raelle Collar. 

Except Talley was spooned against her back, and Abigail was collapsed over her legs, because they'd refused to let her drain the last drops of her life into Scylla. They'd put themselves, their lives, on the line to save her. They'd chosen—

"Raelle!" Tally said, waking up all at once like she somehow did every morning, going from asleep to high noon on a sunny day in a blink. "Thank the goddess, Raelle. We thought—"

"It's okay," Raelle said, even though it was anything but. "I'm okay." She looked over at Scylla and the world blurred with tears. "It's okay," she repeated, this time to the girl she'd loved... and lost. Again. But she would survive it. She'd given Scylla a choice, but she didn't have one. 

She reached for Abigail, shaking her awake, and Abigail scowled. "Took you long enough," she grumbled. 

Raelle almost laughed, and Abigail almost smiled. "Are you going to let me up?" Raelle asked, and her sisters – her unit – peeled themselves away to give her room to move. Because it was time to let go, metaphorically but physically too. She had to let Scylla go.

And then Scylla blinked. Her brow furrowed and her face scrunched and she slowly cracked open her eyes, her gaze landing immediately on Raelle, and her breath caught. "Is this real?" she asked. "Am I—"

"It's real," Raelle said. 

But Scylla's eyes darted from one corner of the room to another, and Raelle could feel her fear, the panic building inside her because she didn't know where she was, didn't know if she was safe, and even Raelle's presence wasn't enough to reassure her, but she would try. That's all either of them could do was try. 

"Scyl, Scylla, I swear..." Raelle looked around too, and landed on Tally's concerned face. "Look. Tally's here. And Abigail. If this was still your fantasy dreamworld, would Abigail be here?" 

Abigail's mouth twisted in amusement. "Welcome back, Necro."

It was enough. Scylla's eyes flooded with tears, and she buried her face in Raelle's neck, crying with relief... or at least that's what Raelle hoped it was. She wrapped her arms around Scylla and brushed her lips against her hair, not trying to hush her but letting her get it – whatever it was – all out. 

"Damn," Abigail muttered. "I was just trying to be nice." 

"Maybe we should give them a minute," Tally said, giving Raelle's shoulder a final squeeze as she got up. 

Abigail stood too, but her hand lingered on Raelle's leg. "I love you, shitbird," she said softly, and then turned and left, closing the door behind her.

"Should I be worried?" Scylla asked, tipping up her face to Raelle's, and there were still tears beaded in her lashes but she was smiling just a little. Just enough.

"Not even a little bit," Raelle said, and kissed her.

* * *

Scylla had chosen. 

She'd chosen Raelle once and she would choose her again, over and over, a thousand times forever if Raelle let her. 

She'd chosen.

No more secrets. No more lies.

"Raelle," she whispered. "There's something you need to know."


End file.
